Dear Friends and Gardeners August 2, 2010

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

This letter post is my 1,500th post on this blog.

I thought about delaying this letter and writing something else to mark the occasion, but then I realized that this weekly letter which usually has an update on my garden is a fitting way to mark this occasion.

When I first started blogging, somewhat tentatively back in 2004, I posted a grand total of seven times between 2004 and 2005, and prior to that I deleted the first blog I started. During those first few years of blogging, it felt like I was planting tiny seeds in a giant field and it was hard to see amongst the vastness of the field if my little blog seeds were germinating or taking root. Did anyone see them? Was anyone out there? Hello? Can you hear me?

It seemed a bit futile.

Then in 2006, I started to see my little blog seeds germinate more frequently. I saw them grow and realized, through comments on my blog, that others were watching my seedlings grow, too. So I planted more blog seeds and sometimes plants. I watered them and pruned them and could see some of them flower.

At the same time, I stopped looking just at my little blog seedlings and found the blog seeds and plants that other garden bloggers were sowing and planting, and I started to help them water and nourish theirs, too. We helped each other! We told each other how much we admired our blog seedlings and plants and whole gardens. We encouraged one another.

And that’s why this letter is a fitting post for my garden blogging milestone.

Garden blogging, as it turns out, is not so much about sowing and planting blog seeds and plants, i.e. posting on your blog, as it is about making connections with other gardeners and encouraging them in their own pursuits of gardening and writing, and living.

And that’s what these letters symbolize. Connections to not just Dee and Mary Ann, but truly connections to gardening friends everywhere.

Thank you to all who have encouraged me, humored me, and admired my little blog seedlings and plants and helped to nourish them along the way to this milestone of 1,500 posts. It truly has been a blessing to garden and blog with each one of you, to read about your gardens and lives, to learn from so many passionate gardeners and to even meet in person!

Carpe hortus,

Carol
May Dreams Gardens

All year I dream of the days of May when the sun is warm, the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the garden is all new again!